Lazy Laugh and a RedWhite Shirt
by vampirepenguin
Summary: Being a Turk's got nothing to do with belief. Fifty sentences on Reno. Game and movieverse, 'ware spoilers. [rated for language and violence, title from Franz Ferdinand's 'The Fallen']


**AN:** Okay so. It's been forever and a half since I last updated anything. I put in a claim at the 1sentence comm on LJ, but never heard back, so I guess this is unofficial? Anyway, more Reno.

**WARNINGS:** for bad language and Turking.

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_01 - speak_  
He never stops talking - it's like a constant assault on the sanity of anyone within range.

_02 - touch_  
If he's within arm's reach, you're already dead.

_03 - memory_  
He doesn't think about the past much, 'cos it's mostly dead anyway and everything he wants is up here, above the Plate.

_04 - vanilla_  
Bland, boring, repetitive, he pronounces it; wanna try something new?

_05 - chocolate_  
He eats anything and everything that doesn't try to eat him first (and some things that do), but always leaves the chocolate for Rude.

_06 - ways and means_  
When they ask him how the hell he managed to get through a three-inch thick magnetically sealed door, he just shrugs sheepishly and says he thought it was the way to the john and points out that doors are sneaky fuckers and next time they oughtta make the signs bigger.

_07 - belief_  
Being a Turk's got nothing to do with belief.

_08 - linger_  
His first crime - well, the first one he got caught and written up for - was malicious lingering.

_09 - illuminance_  
It's always dark under the Plate, and even years after escaping it, he still tilts his head back and closes his eyes, greeting the smog-sheltered sun with a grin.

_10 - ornament_  
"I understand that you're bored, Reno...but why the President's hood ornament?"

_11 - coup de fourdre_  
He's always had an affinity for electricity, even before he chose the EMR - under the Plate he'd once rerouted power from three sectors to spell out obscenities in acres of stolen Christmas lights.

_12 - archway_  
No one was ever quite sure why he'd taken offense to the arbor, but it had made a rather spectacular bonfire.

_13 - fate_  
Ask Tseng, and he'll tell you life is what it is, and people are what they are meant to be; ask Rufus, and he'll tell you he makes his own fate; ask Reno, and he'll tell you it's a crock - life's too short to contemplate philosophy when there are perfectly good edifices that haven't been blown up even once yet.

_14 - pulse_  
He likes Midgar because it's so alive, full to bursting with people, all carrying out their own little lives and so sure of their own importance, all completely unaware of how insignificant they are.

_15 - envelope_  
His paycheck is invariably less than the others' - there's always deductions for vending machine-icide, gratuitous property damage, cleaning bills, excessive ammunition cuts - but he always manages to get stinking drunk off it, just the same.

_16 - cold_  
It's his first winter above the Plate, and for the first time, he is warm enough; he bundles himself in a new coat and turns up the heat to ward off remembered chill.

_17 - need_  
He needs to be noticed like people need to eat - it's just who he is.

_18 - drunk_  
Life seems so much clearer through the bottom of a bottle, all round and fuzzy around the edges and somehow _friendly_...until it tries to mug him again and he has to break its kneecaps.

_19 - mask_  
He always smiles when he kills; easy, friendly, maybe a little apologetic.

_20 - rose _  
The smell makes him sneeze, a fact Elena exploits like a true Turk, threatening him with flowers when he replaces her ammo with blanks again.

_21 - two _  
Having a partner must be like what having family feels like, he thinks, but he doesn't really know, since he can't remember ever having a family, so he shrugs the thought off.

_22 - fresh_  
Somehow, Tseng seems even more disgustingly awake and alert when Reno's hungover, the smug Wutainese shit.

_23 - bribe_  
Turks get offered lots of "gifts" - Reno takes them all with a big grin...then carries out his orders to the letter, just the same.

_24 - error _  
He resolves never to underestimate girly blond crossdressers again.

_25 - appetite_  
He's always willing to encourage Elena's sporadic attempts at dieting - more food for him!

_26 - refrain_  
If he hears that fucking Loveless song on the radio one more time, he's going to snap.

_27 - family _  
Old Man Shinra once claimed Shinra Company was like a big, happy family - Reno really did try not to laugh in his face, honest.

_28 - grieve_  
When Tseng is pronounced killed-in-action, Reno panics - not out of any particular affection for the Turk leader, but because after Tseng, he's the most senior Turk in the department.

_29 - vapor _  
It rises up from the grating in the middle of the road, and he stares through it, eyes unfocused.

_30 - tea _  
He'd tossed the scalding-hot contents of the teacup in the man's face and rolled to his feet, ready for a fight - these high-class cultural dinners were never his style.

_31 - medicine _  
If laughter is the best medicine, Reno will never die.

_32 - moth _  
Close, closer, closest..._fffzt_, a little puff of flame and it's gone - there's a metaphor here, he just knows it.

_33 - perfect _  
He chortles a little and rubs his hands together, eyes gleaming in the half-light, counting down under his breath - three...two...one...

_34 - rope _  
It's rough and bites into his hands, but he holds on grimly - his is not the only life that depends on his bloody-minded stubbornness, now.

_35 - wind_  
His throat is raw from yelling at dumbshit civilians and the Meteor-driven wind whips his hair into his face - there is no hope left for any of them, and he tilts his head back and watches the Planet's doom draw close.

_36 - crossroads _  
"Nothing personal, boss," Reno tells Old Man Shinra's coffin, hands in his pockets.

_37 - summer_  
It's hot and sticky and even Elena's shed her jacket, and really there's nothing Reno hates worse than honest work, but it's Rufus' orders, and Rufus is _alive_, and that's enough for him.

_38 - candy _  
He likes chocolate well enough, but prefers the little hard candies so sour they make your jaw ache.

_39 - photograph _  
He's sticking his tongue out in his ID picture - they tried to make him change it once, but he retaliated by welding all their computers to the ceiling.

_40 - spoon_  
He brags that he can kill a man with just about anything, be it his favored EMR, a gun, a necktie, or even plastic cutlery.

_41 - forest _  
Nature, Reno decides (after slightly less than half an hour trudging through the eerie-ass white forest that surrounds the Ancient Capital), is for the birds.

_42 - mirror _  
People look at him and see the suit, see Turk, first thing off; he looks at himself and he just sees Reno...but he figures it's all the same when you get right down to it.

_43 - smoke_  
He's still proud of that one time he single-handedly brought the entire Midgar President's Day Parade down in smoke, although he's not sure exactly how he did it - he was dead drunk at the time.

_44 - shine_  
He doesn't really see the moon until he's almost twenty years old and on a mission to Junon with Rude - he doesn't sleep at all, that first night, just gives himself a crick in his neck staring at everything, bathed in moonlight.

_45 - balloon _  
The loud BANG makes everybody jump, twitchy politicians and on-edge bodyguards alike; Reno grins as innocently as he knows how and surreptitiously slips the pin back up his sleeve.

_46 - vine _  
The dead powerlines are coiled around the scattered rubble like great snakes or something and his hands are bruised and bleeding because there's so much debris to shift and not enough people and Reno's not big or strong but they need every warm body they can get - the rough edges bite into his palms and the blood's starting to make it harder to keep his grip but it doesn't matter because Rufus is under there, dying.

_47 - butterfly _  
Elena calls it cruelty to animals, Reno calls it target practice; Rude figures that it doesn't really matter one way or another, because it's not like Reno ever manages to hit the tiny insects.

_48 - gloves _  
Reno calls them the Ass-Kicking Gloves, and everyone knows better than to mess with Rude when he puts them on.

_49 - venom _  
He once spent a week in the hospital, convinced that the building was trying to eat him - Tseng maintains it was his own damn fault for kicking Professor Hojo's puppy anyway.

_50 - remain _  
Reno doesn't know why the others stay with Rufus - for his part, it keeps him from getting bored, and though the pay is now officially shit, the benefits are still _fantastic_.

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**Endnotes:** What the shit has FFN done to the formatting now? FAIL.

In any case, it's probably time for me to start uploading all the stuff I've written over the last six months, huh. Watch this space for further developments?


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